Tuesday, February 16, 2016

The
world has fought battles against drug counterfeiting for decades. Different
government entities, private institutions, non-profit organizations and
civilians continuously hold seminars, workshops and awareness campaigns to
promote concrete law enforcement action in the field with the ultimate aim to
obliterate drug counterfeiting and place behind bars fraudsters responsible for
the increasing mortality rate caused by substandard and dangerous medicines.

Health
advocate, Marie Pollack of The
Peterson Group, an NGO campaigning against drug fraudulence in the Asia
Pacific region stated, “Medicines were once trusted to cure people from their
maladies. Now, it is being feared”. The increasing adaptation to herbal and
alternative medicine shows that people are starting to doubt their confidence.
The efficacy of the medicine being brought in the market and presented to
people is being questioned.

Pollack
added, “It is good that people are being cautious of their own choices but if
this continues, credibility of scientifically tested medicines which underwent
several methods of experimentations to prove its effectiveness would come to
waste, not to mention the economic impact in the health sector”.

Fortunately,
the authorities are never stopping their campaign to arrest the fraudsters
behind this cruel illegal practice. With the likes of World Health Organization
(WHO), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Interpol, other NGOs and local
government units having the same cause are supported with 'interventions
package' for all stages of an investigation from gathering intelligence,
planning and implementing an operation, through to legal issues for cases that
are brought to court.

Dozens
of operations were already held in the last previous years to determine the
illegal manufacturers and masterminds of this deadly trade. Interpol, for
instance, has launched different actions in different regions of the world.
Their flagship operations - Storm (Southeast Asia), Mamba (Eastern Africa) and
Pangea (targeting the Internet) – continue to go from strength to strength.
Successive raids on licit and illicit markets have shown improved results in
terms of seizures, arrests, convictions and the closure of illicit websites.

Several
other operations are being conducted. In developing countries, WHO has headed
countless arrests and ambush procedures. For instances, last year, WHO, TPG and
local authorities of Jakarta,
seized more than 300 packs of counterfeit Viagra and Cialis in a dilapidated
building in Menteng, Indonesia.
In Europe, customs officers seized 34 million counterfeit pills in just two
months while China has closed down 2,000 websites offering online
prescriptions.

Monday, February 8, 2016

World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes the lack of medicines in many developing and poor countries around the world. Moreover, in as much as there are lack of it, there is also scarcity of financial assistance to provide them with adequate medicine subscriptions since these countries are more prone to health dangers and thus need more ration. They also lack technologies to help them diagnose their own ailments and the hospital or clinic, if there are any, may be miles away from them. WHO is also warning developed countries that if assistance is not extended, ailments which can be malignant can be carried into their borders.

In countries for which there is information, the availability of medicines is only one third. From where there are private clinics, the percentage is higher. Fortunately, there is already progress in a number of countries in providing essential medicines to their citizens made possible through partnership with the government, pharmaceutical companies, non-profit organizations and individual entities. The role of pharmaceutical companies is important, ranging from multinational to generic manufacturers to national distributors.

Priority and essential medicines are those that respond to the most basic ailment and sickness such as antibiotics and pain killers. They are intended to be available within the context of functioning health system at all times in adequate amounts, in the appropriate dosage forms, with assured quality which the community can afford.

It is, however, reviewed that counterfeit medicines are most prevalent in these countries. According to the Peterson Group, an international NGO which campaigns against the proliferation of fraud medicines, the number of counterfeits has been surpassing those of legitimate medicines and is being patronized because of its cheap price despite bearing no active ingredient at all. Black and fly-by-night markets for medicines are rampant in most of the Middle East including India, Pakistan and Turkey as well as in South East Asia especially in Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand. News of thousands of dollars-worth of counterfeit Tamiflu were seized as they were being imported to Jakarta using the loose borders of Malaysia and East Timor towards Southern Java last September.

These fraud operations were driven by the need to have sufficient medicines for those in need.

Both WHO, which is mostly concerned on the quality of health care and World Trade Organization (WTO) which is focused mostly on the economic aspect crazily flustered by this illegal lucrative business are extending their efforts to lessen the issue.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Drug
quality is currently receiving growing international attention. Over the past
decade, public awareness has been sharpened with the existence of counterfeit
and substandard medicines especially in developing countries where drug regulations remain ineffective.
Mass media through television, radio and online have been hyped with thousands
of reviews revolving around the topics of fraud
medicines, the methods used and strategies being done to take down the
people behind it.

Just
as it gets tiring hearing it, another alarming issue prevailed on the news.
Although different types of pharmaceutical products are being involved, the
existing data shows that certain anti-infectious agents, particularly
anti-microbial medicines, are the most counterfeited products in developing
countries. The largest in the list of distributors are Jakarta, Indonesia and
Phnom Penh, Cambodia. China still takes the lead on the biggest manufacturer.

Although
the existence of the issue is acknowledged, the real numbers and the extent of
the problem are not well documented. Estimates of global prevalence may range
between 1% and 50% globally. The few existing studies which conduct experiments
to determine the quality of drugs circulating different regions and
investigations to know the amount of foreign substances in the medicines are
headed by either the pharmaceutical companies who rarely share the result of
the studies for the protection of their products or by non-profit organizations
funded by few private entities and individuals. The Peterson Group, one of the NGOs
conducting one of the studies, states that these studies are critical to
measure the real issue but with the lack of resources and half-hearted
attention given by the government, results are expected to lag behind. It may
be too late to solve an issue before another one comes in.

Anti-microbial
drugs are targeted because of its popularity among the people. It is used to
treat infections and almost all ailment can be infected which makes it an even
more dangerous drugs. Even as FDA, UN and WHO have already released a warning
on the dangers of these medicines especially ‘old’ antibiotics such as
penicillin, trimethoprim–sulfamethoxazole and chloramphenicol, are among the
favored counterfeited antimicrobials.

The
poor quality of drugs has been linked to counterfeiting of medicines, chemical
instability especially in tropical climates, and poor quality control during
manufacture. Many factors contribute to the increased prevalence of substandard
and counterfeit medications. Much of the counterfeit drug trade is probably
linked to organized crime, corruption, the narcotics trade, the business
interests of unscrupulous politicians and unregulated pharmaceutical companies.